"Mobile to overtake fixed Internet access by 2014" was the huge headline summarising the bold prediction from 2008 by Mary Meeker, an analyst at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers who reviews technology trends annually in May (See our review of the latest later in in this post if you're not familiar with this 'must-read' report).
The mobile statistics that the team at Smart Insights curate in the regular updates to this article include:
Ownership of smartphone vs Desktop
Mobile vs desktop media use
Mobile advertising response
Smartphone vs Tablet vs Desktop conversion rates
Well, we're now past the mobile Tipping Point as this report from comScore shows. So it's no longer a case of asking whether mobile marketing important, we know it is! It's now a question of using the statistics to understand how consumers behave when using different types of mobile devices and what their preferences…

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Landing page examples and best practice advice

Discussion of web design in companies who don't know the power of landing pages still often focuses on the home page. But savvy companies know that custom landing pages are essential to maximise conversion of leads when using inbound marketing techniques like SEO, AdWords and social media to drive visitors to a site.
So this prompts the question, which factors make for the most effective landing page? Is a 'Perfect Landing Page' possible? This post gives a summary of my top 12 tips and places to look to find more examples.

Salesforce.com - an example of the evolution of the Perfect Landing Page?

To illustrate these tips, I'm going to use an example I've used in training many years - it's the Salesforce.com lead generation page for its CRM service targeting searchers who are looking for CRM systems.
The Salesforce.com landing pages illustrate many good practices. I've marked up what I see as…

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Amazon's business strategy and revenue model: A history and 2014 update

collI've used Amazon as a case study in my books for over 10 years now since I think all types of businesses can learn from their digital business strategy. From startups and small businesses to large international businesses, their focus on the customer, testing market opportunities made available by digital technology and their focus on testing and analysis to improve results.
I aim to keep this case study up-to-date for readers of the books and Smart Insights readers who may be interested. In it we look at Amazon's background, revenue model and sources for the latest business results.
We can also learn from their approach to digital marketing since they use digital marketing efficiently across all customer communications touchpoints in our RACE marketing planning framework:
Reach: Amazon's initial business growth based on detailed approach to SEO and AdWords targeting millions of keywords.
Act: Creating a clear simple experiences through testing and…

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Use the RACE Planning System to get ahead in your digital marketing

The first edition of my book Internet Marketing: Strategy, Planning and Implementation from 2001 included a popular template for creating what we then called an Internet Marketing Plan.
Today, marketers are understandably even more hungry for guidance, given the importance of digital media. The original plan in my book has been revised to create a free to download digital marketing planning template based on the Smart Insights RACE planning system. This template is based on fifteen plus years experience of creating and reviewing digital marketing plans for companies and helping students develop them.

Get started with our free digital marketing plan template

Learn how to structure a digital plan when you download our 14 page A4 PDF template. It will show you the essential online marketing activities that you must work on.
Download the free Planning template »
If you're already a member you can download this…

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Selecting the best revenue options for Internet startups

I'm often contacted by site owners with an idea for a new site who are trying to work out how much revenue they'll be able to raise depending on the number of visitors to their site.
There's no simple answer to this, but to help, several years ago I created this spreadsheet model which also features in my books as an activity to help students working on this topic. It shows the main parameters you need to set - blue fields and it works how the revenue earning - orange fields.

The Site Ad revenue model

If you plug in some average figures for pay-for-performance-based advertising options like cost per click or cost per action approaches li as shown below it shows why fixed fee and CPM models tend to be preferred by publishers.
It also shows that you need substantial traffic to to make much money…

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What is PR Smith's SOSTAC® marketing planning model and how do you use it?

If you don't know PR Smith's SOSTAC® model, it's worth getting to know if you're involved with planning marketing strategies or campaigns. SOSTAC® was voted the third most popular model in the CIM poll on marketing models in 2011 because it's easy to remember and it makes it easy to structure plans for different planning activities. Whether you're creating an overall marketing or digital marketing strategy or improving individual channel tactics like SEO or email marketing SOSTAC®, is your friend.
February 2015 update: If you're an Expert member of Smart Insights, you can read Paul Smith's 160 page guide explaining How to create the Perfect Digital Plan using SOSTAC®.
Recommended Guide:
SOSTAC® Digital Marketing Plan guide by its creator…

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Our review of backlink analysis software tools and web services

Link analysis has always been an integral part to search marketing efforts. As with all marketing, you need to benchmark where you are and what your competitors are doing in order to put the right work in place and also to track performance. Within the last two years this process has become easier with a wider range of tools now available to aid you.

Search specialists will definitely know all of these and many more, but this list is aimed more at client-side marketers who want to benchmark their link quality against competitors, review SEO agency performance and spot opportunities for partnering with other sites, for example blogger outreach.

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Efficiency vs effectiveness definition & explanation

I think many would think the meaning of efficiency and effectiveness are similar terms for describing the performance of a business process.
If so, think again, since whatever the type of process you really need both types of measures when identifying the most suitable goals and measures to assess your marketing or business effectiveness. It's fine to say the difference doesn't matter especially, but I think that understanding the difference helps you create a better set of measures!
I hope to show why the difference is important in this article where I'll give a brief definition of each and show examples of efficiency and effectiveness measures applied to digital marketing.

Definition of efficiency

The simple, often used, definition of efficiency is ("doing the thing right").
We need this measure for marketing activities and business processes since it helps us see when…

I've put this compilation together to help marketers and students studying interactive marketing create direct response conversion models for digital marketing campaigns.
When I originally compiled these stats from different sources, social media ads were only in their infancy, but they are now established as a mainstay of online advertising. In this latest update I have added a comparison of CTRs for Facebook and Twitter at the end of post.
If you're looking to get more from your display advertising we have an Expert members guide to retargeting with display ads
Recommended Guide: Ad Retargeting briefing
Learn the success factors and best practices for display advertising from Emma Ashby who works as Display Manager at epiphany.
Download our Ad retargeting guide

Online marketers love statistics about digital marketing. They allow us to review customer adoption of the latest digital platforms, make business cases for investment in marketing and allow us to benchmark our performance against competitors.
To help readers of our blog keep 'up-to-speed' with the most significant, best sources of stats we have regular posts each week in our digital marketing statistics post category and flag them as #DigitalInsights on social media and in our enewsletter.
For Expert members, we compile a regularly updated set of usage statistics to use in presentations - it's updated each quarter so all the latest stats are categorised in a single place for including in presentations.
Recommended Guide: Online…